The three-word message, launched minutes after the verdict came in, was succinct in its solidarity. “Je suis Marine!” Hungary’s Viktor Orbán posted on social media after France’s far-right leader, Marine Le Pen, was found guilty of embezzling European parliament funds and barred immediately from running for public office.
Messages soon came tumbling in from Brazil to Belgium, hinting at how rightwing nationalist and populist leaders had seized on the ruling to push their own narrative.
Most of them paid little heed to the judges’ finding of the key role Le Pen and more than two dozen others had played in a scam that prosecutors alleged had diverted more than €4m (£3.4m) of European parliament funds to benefit the party.
On Thursday, Donald Trump became the latest to weigh in, railing against the court’s sentencing of Le Pen to four years in prison, of which two years were suspended and the other two set to be served outside jail with an electronic bracelet. “The Witch Hunt against Marine Le Pen is another example of European Leftists using Lawfare to silence Free Speech, and censor their Political Opponent, this time going so far as to put that Opponent in prison,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, describing the charge as “minor”. He added: “FREE MARINE LE PEN.”
As France reeled from the political upheaval, opponents of liberal democracy jumped at the chance to peddle their claims that some justice systems are being used as a blunt tool to silence the will of the people. “When the radical left can’t win via democratic vote, they abuse the legal system to jail their opponents,” wrote Elon Musk. “This is their standard playbook throughout the world.”
The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, described the verdict as part of a broader pattern of European capitals “trampling over democratic norms”, while Italy’s deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, likened the ruling to Romania, where courts overturned the first-round results of the presidential election and later upheld a decision to ban the frontrunner amid suspicions of Russian interference.
“People who are afraid of the judgment of the voters are often reassured by the judgment of the courts,” Salvini wrote. “In Paris they have condemned Marine Le Pen and would like to exclude her from political life – an ugly film that we are also seeing in other countries such as Romania.”
Legal experts pushed back against the claims. “The decision is extremely well reasoned, the court handed down a judgment that seems to me implacable on its merits and without any real possible dispute,” said Mathieu Carpentier, a law professor at Toulouse Capitole University, citing the more than 150-page ruling delivered by the three judges. “If Madame Le Pen had not broken the law, she would not have been convicted.”
It was a point that leaders in countries such as the US, Russia and Hungary – all of whom have faced accusations of undermining their country’s judiciary – were seemingly content to overlook.
“It’s very interesting because these are the same people who call for absolutely exemplary sentences for delinquency and for justice to be severe,” said Carpentier. Le Pen, for example, called in 2013 for lifelong ineligibility for politicians convicted of criminal acts while in office.
Ultimately, said Carpentier, Le Pen and her defenders “don’t like the rule of law, they use justice always and only as a political instrument”.
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“We’re living in a period which is extremely problematic, where judges are being pitted against democracy despite the fact that they are only applying the laws that have been passed by the representatives of the people,” said Carpentier. “It’s a sort of constant manipulation, or instrumentalisation that’s really harmful.”
As far-right figures lined up behind Le Pen, the three-time presidential hopeful didn’t shy away from stoking the fire. “The system has launched a nuclear bomb,” she told supporters as she vowed to appeal against the sentence. “If they are using such a powerful weapon against us, it’s obviously because we’re about to win elections.”
But behind the bluster lay a conundrum for Le Pen and her anti-immigration the National Rally (RN) party, said Célia Belin, who heads the Paris office of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
“With this decision, I think we are really at a crossroads for the National Rally,” she said. “If they want to benefit from this, they have to go full anti-system and really cry wolf,” she said. “Really underline that the system is against them, that they are prevented from governing, and that they want to use the echo chamber of the European and American far right.”
This approach – catapulting the RN into the spotlight as the standard-bearer of a movement that spans from Orbán in Hungary to Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil – risks derailing Le Pen’s decade-long drive to soften the party’s image.
The delicate balancing act was laid bare earlier this year when Le Pen’s right-hand man, Jordan Bardella, abruptly cancelled plans to deliver a speech at the US Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, after Steve Bannon flashed what Bardella described as a “gesture alluding to Nazi ideology”.
A poll carried out in the wake of the verdict for French broadcaster BFMTV suggested that the narrative being pushed by Le Pen’s international supporters diverged from the view of many in France, with 57% of respondents saying they believed the courts had delivered justice without bias.
“That’s the paradox,” said Belin. “I don’t think they’ve [the RN] decided whether they’re going to align themselves with these outside supporters or whether they will continue with their strategy of sovereigntism, of gaining respectability and of participating in some of this rightwing movement, but with a lot of caution.”
